I am so SMRT

So while in Ironton I learn my 12 year old niece is being courted by Duke University. They want my sister to pay to have M3 (my niece, just in case Duke finds this) take the SAT. If she does well then they will track her through junior high and high school. If she does well then Duke may give her a scholarship or something shiny.

My question is:

WHY IS DUKE LOOKING AT A 12 YEAR OLD?

I think this is great for M3, but she is still a kid! She likes to play softball and be a normal pre-teen. I hope my sister doesn't have her take the test. If they think that highly of her now, just let her be a kid and see what happens. Don't be one of those parents that puts too much presser on a kid so that she snaps and runs off with some local red neck guy named Billy Bob.

The amazing thing about my niece is that everyone I tell this story too looks at me and says "She's related to you?" Maybe it's like the Simpsons I get dumber and she gets S.M.R.T I mean S.M.A.R.T. How do I know she got the brains from my family? Her dad makes this guy look like a freaking genius.

SUNDAY: Drive, drive, drive

Wilson once again fixed a wonderful meal. This time it was apple Cinnamon pancakes that was unbelievable. We could not stay long because we had a long drive ahead of us. The Wife's sister was having a cook out for the family in Troy, Ohio on the other side of the state. It takes us three hours to get there. With the wonderful drag we are getting from the bikes we are going to have to fill up again for the return trip home.

It's pretty obvious The Wife biological family and I don't quit see eye to eye on a lot of things, but they are now my in-laws so I have to deal with it. Today though nothing really happened that made me want to leave five minutes after we arrive. We ate hamburgers and then played volleyball for a couple of hours. Every trip to the biological family needs to set up this way.

We once again fill the gas tank up and now have spent almost $100 just in gas. We finally get home and end our trip. We spent too much money for what we were doing, but we had a good time. hopefully next time we learn from our mistakes and will do better.

SATURDAY: A day that started bad and ended ... OK

I woke up first and decided to clear out some bad pictures in the ole digital camera. I start deleting when I get to a black picture. DELETE, then something bad happened. It didn't go away right away, instead it said processing. What the hell was it processing? Well I found out it some how deleted EVERY PICTURE! The drinking, the canoeing, some pretty flowers... EVERYTHING. I was devastated and luckily the night before I loaded some of the pictures onto Wilson's computer.

We go take showers, break down Ft. Baker because it's suppose to rain most of the day and head out to a meeting The Wife has needs to go to. We get there late she does her thing and that leads to a fight. I will not say why we argued but we did. This trip is starting to take a turn for the worst. It got so bad we didn't get lunch.


We head to my parents house for more of well non-camping activity. We mostly sat around talked and watched two movies, A river Runs Through It and Fallen. Both are good movies and made the day go by fast. A huge thunder storm rolled through and I am glad we broke down the Fort. It's about dinner time and we take mom to Toro Loco. She loved it and will be taking dad some day when he is not working.

We then head back to Wilson's where we decided to spend the night. The ground was too wet and he had some extra beds. We ended the night with yet another movie Last of the Mohicans. That ends the camping part of our vactation. The Wife actually wants to do this again, well maybe more in the fall so we can do more, and over all it was a good trip.

FRIDAY: The day after

We awake around 8:00am and you may wonder "How did you get up so early from all that drinking?" Well when you get that drunk by 9:00pm, you are usually OK by 8:00. I slowly start figuring out where I am and what we are going to do. We go down to the Pick N Save for some needed supplies and things we forgot. On our way out we find a voice mail. It's Wilson he sounds like he had a bad night of drinking... Oh yeah he did. His message says he is going to run 14 miles and will be back later if he does not fall down and pass out.

We have a lot of time to kill. We head back to Ft. Baker and take a shower... of sorts. Now I have seen some pretty bad camping showers. These how ever where not too hate full. The stalls are pretty small and there are only two, but we are the only ones using them. It took me a minute to figure out the system. You had to push a button and water came out. To get warmer water turn the knob and wait 3 minutes. Now that may seem pretty simple, but it looked harder at the time. Also another trick was the fact you had to keep pushing the button in every two minutes so the water would not shut off. We head back to Ft. Baker and do a little napping, reading, poker and all around nothing.

Just after noon we got bored and wondered where Wilson is. We head to his cabin and see he is still not home. We break out the bikes and try to go for a ride. As you may have noticed I said try. We go about 10 minutes and everything is uphill. The wife is not use to this so we only went on for another 5 minutes then we turned around and went back to Wilson's.

Still no sign of the guy. I'm starting to think he is in some gutter wishing for death, but I'm hungry so we go out to eat. Ironton actually has restaurants now! One of them happens to be a Mexican restaurant named Toro Loco. For Ironton this was really good Mexican! I am shocked that this has happened. For years the closest decent restaurant was in another state 10 minutes away. I hope Toro Loco continues to do well so we can go back. As we are leaving I get a call from Wilson, he has finally made it home, he's going to take a nap and will come back to Ft. Baker when he wakes up.

Once Wilson has arisen from his finally drunken stooper we arrives at Ft. Baker and we go back to his place for some awesome Italian chicken and dirty rice.

For the first time on our trip we actually go and do something campy. We get a canoe and go out on the lake. It was a fun our and a half which included a little rain shower and us sitting under a tree leaning out over the lake. It was a great way to end the day.

THURSDAY: What just happened?

With football starting up soon I decided to take a few days off before I have to work almost every day from now till December. The Wife wanted to go camping so we went to a Lake Vesuvius just outside my home town of Ironton.

We got up late because we are on vacation and its going to be hot and didn't want to sit around in 90 plus weather with 100 percent humidity. We finally got the car packed by 11:00AM. I got the bikes on the car. This was the first time we had two bikes on the bike rack that I have had since 1995. Well the rack did not sit well. We started driving and it got real bad after I went over a set of speed bumps. So we had to head to Dick's Sporting Goods and spent WAY too much for a new rack. It's now 12:30 and I'm started to get frustrated. This trip isn't going well and we have not left Columbus.

We get on the open road and I notice the new bike rack sits a lot higher on my car and well, it's causing massive draft on the back of the car which forces the Mazda to suck gas. A trip that normally I can do on just over a quarter of a tank, Well it took over a half a tank. We almost ran out of gas. We took the back way in which is very rural and not a lot of gas stations. We actually passed one station selling gas at $3.15, not too much of a problem but when I know that in Ironton it will be $2.70 I'll try to make it and I barely did.

We fill up and head to what I called Ft. Baker, yes Ft. Baker, if there is a Ft. Wayne then I can have a Ft. Baker. With the help of Wilson we find a suitable site that is close to the bathrooms for the wife, but kind of way from other people. We picked the site and then found out Wilson had bad memories of this site, you can ask him about it if you ever get to meet him. After we set up we then head to his former ranger house for dinner.

I have a new found respect for old man Wilson, THAT MAN CAN COOK! He got some beef from his cattle raising parents. He opened the package, unfolded the beef and then unfolded the beef once more. These steaks are FREAKING HUGE! We ate like kings and a queen. Beef straight from the butcher is better than any steak you can buy at a store or a restaurant.


After dinner we put on our smoking jackets and sat around discussing world politics and how we can better society... Who are we kidding we drank out ASSES OFF! IT got ugly and early quick. It started off with wine and Guinness, then it went to the mother of all drinks the Black and Raspberry which shall be referred from this point on and forever as the Vesuvius Special. Wilson and I had three of them and then more Guinness and then the hard stuff. Some special rum from the Caribbean and some Italian death drink. All I have to say is enjoy the picture show.






Wilson seems to be very relaxed.

Going Round and Round

It's almost 10am and you might be wondering, J-Dog why are you not asleep? You Never get up this early. Well, I'm goin' racin! WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I'm getting ready to head down to Kentucky Motor Speedway with a couple of friends for the IRL practice and qualifying.

Hopefully Danica let that restraining order laps. I'll post a new post when I get back tonight. Cars going around in circles! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

SHAKE N BAKE!

Hey baby

Yesterday I lost the keys to my personal car. I found this out about and hour and a half before I was to leave for the day. I was in a panic. I searched my work car, then I looked to make sure I did not lock the keys in the car. I searched the edit bays, the assignment deck. I asked security if they had been turned in, I even called one of the assignments that I went to and Dick's Sporting Goods. No one knows where they are. I hang up the phone and this was the conversation that followed.

Me: Well that's everything

Dave (an editor): What are you going to do?

Me: Only one thing (pause) Hey Baby!

Jeff (photographer): You calling AAA?

(loud laughter from Dan and I)

Dave: You have to sweet talk those AAA guys.

That was the funniest thing I had heard all day. He was trying to say it before I went "Hey baby" but he was a little late. Then it went to other places

Hey Baby, can I have a Bic Mac, fries and a medium coke?

Hey baby, can I get an oil change?

Hey baby, our air is not working, can you find out what's wrong?

How much better life would be if you had to say that every time you needed something. I wonder if the world would be a little better.

Lets jump forward today, I was on my way back from Athens, Oh when my "reporter" needed to go to the bathroom. We stop at a Speedway and I got a Coke Zero. The lady at the counter asked, "Do you have a Speedy Rewards Card." I attempt to pull my out and then I realize that it was on my missing keys. I say no, I lost them.

*Little light goes off*

I left my keys at the Speedway in Canal Winchester! I had a sinus/caffeine headache yesterday and I stopped there for a Coke Zero. It's on the way back to the station so I pull in and ask

Me: I have a strange question. Did you find a set of keys?

Guy: That's not strange

(pulls out a box of keys)

THEY HAVE A BOX OF KEYS!!! I see them and say thank you, but I am amazed and a little confused how you can have so many keys left at a store? Then again I am one of the dumbasses that left a set of keys at the Speedway in Canal Winchester.

Riding a bike is just like riding a bike

The Wife has been wanting a bike for about two years now. She has asked at Christmas, birthdays, other peoples birthdays, Guy Fawkes Day. So we finally found one pretty cheap and I had already picked up my old bike from my parents house (is this fore shadowing?). So this Saturday morning we get up a little earlier than normal and get ready for a nice bike ride. So we get them outside and take a few quick pictures then we were on our way.


It was pretty fun at first, but I should also mention that we both have not been on a bike since the the year were in the 199?s. Not too long into the ride we started to get a little tired and need a break. I know I don't have the best endurance, but I know I can ride long than 15 minutes. We drink our water and start riding again. After about 2 miles we decide to go to her parents house. and start that way.

I'm really getting tired and my legs started to burn and I was not able to go as far on each push of the peddle. That's when I figured out that my tire was going flat. I guess sitting in my parents garage for 7 years were not the best thing for the inner tubes. We had to keep stopping and I luckily bought a portable tire pump. So while we were resting I'm pumping the tires and I never really got to rest.

We made it to their housing development and we were met by two large hills. My tires were deflated again and I decided to walk up both hills. After the lovely walk we get back on and finally ride into their drive way. We are met by her dad and he can tell by the sweat stained shirt that I may have over done it a little. After downing three bottles of water we get ask her dad to drive us back to our house. I felt bad doing that, but I would have not made it to the end of the street. So we load the bikes in the back with The Wife and we reset the Odometer to see how far we rode. We reached the house and found out we rode over 6 miles! I think that is pretty good for two out of shape people with one back that had a bad tires.

Hot Hot Hot

Holy Crap is it hot outside! So far the last four days in Columbus have been in the 90s with the humidity making it 100 F-ing Billion Degrees! I'm not a huge man but I have some gurth to me; all I have to say is I'm built for fall and winter... get my drift? It doesn't take much for me to break a sweat, but when it's this hot, I need a change of cloths every time I go outside. The first two days I was able to stay indoors, but not Wednesday and Thursday. Yesterday I did a story about it's hot outside so are people going to the pool. It sucks when you do this. The cool refreshing water is right there! I could just jump in, but I might ruin yet another camera. DAMN YOU ELECTRICAL THINGS AND MOLECULAR COMPOSITIONS!!! Then today was a mix bag of out door goodness. I have a publicity shoot for out local sister station. Then it was shooting gas stations for an hour. I get back in the truck, I crank the A/C and try to dry out as well. I am now smelly and sweaty. Stupid global warming! Why can't it be like a mall 75 degrees and always with a Cinnabon.